For the Germans as the host it was a great month with magic moments, wonderful guests, beautiful weather and exciting sports. Now the ball is kicked to South-Africa, where in 2010 football enthusiasts will meet next for the first world championship on that continent.

If you've got some spare time you might be interested to read some visitors comments.

Congratulations also to the host country who did such a wonderful job.

I have heard that the British football fans who traveled around Germany over a couple of weeks were so impressed with the country and the German people that there has now been a surge of flight and holiday bookings to Germany, not a common destination for most Britains

margaret wrote:Congratulations also to the host country who did such a wonderful job.

I agree with Margaret - it all seems to have come together so well, with such good will shown by the German hosts. I know the people of Oehringen (where Socceroos training base was) went out of their way to make the Australians feel very welcome!

Cheers
Andrew (Darby)

'I cannot give the reasons
I only sing the tunes
The sadness of the seasons
The madness of the moons'
~ Mervyn Peake ~

Congratulations, Germany!!! It's so good to see that even though Germany lost, Germany won. The lasting, worldwide goodwill can be more important than a single year's World Cup victory [even though some sports-type people might vehemently disagree ]. The numbers of follow-up reservations speak for themselves. In the long run, this will help the German economy, as well. The goodwill extended by the Germans and received by the visitors can just keep flowing.

I felt very badly about France's situation, when I listened to the description on NPR yesterday by someone in France. The sports hero on their team, who has now just retired, with this being his last game, had head-butting one of the opposing players and being kicked out of the game, as the very final, two moves related to his longtime career in soccer ~ and all that in overtime ! He's been highly-esteemed as being soft-spoken, gentlemanly, and elegant in his manner... and was a true role model.

They haven't confirmed, yet, what the other player said to him, I think they said it'll be Wednesday before he speaks about it... however, it is RUMOURED [only!] that the other player called him a something-or-other terrorist. Because of his heritage, if this was the case, he was deeply offended by this and simply reacted... something the commentator said can be typical of much younger players, but not of someone as seasoned as he was... someone's who's heard everything and learned to just walk away, ignore it, and go on. I guess it was notable that he had walked away a couple steps and then turned to headbutt the other guy.

The positive thing is that the French media did not speak ill of him [due to his longterm reputation and this clearly being an aberrant act] and the French people and fans reportedly lined up to thank him for his longtime career. It was noted that he both excelled and appalled within the same game. It was a better word than "excelled" and a different word than "appalled" that was used, but that's the idea.

Hearing of such sad events as this is just, well, sad . It sounds like, in the end, he'll be remembered most for the best of what he gave to the game and to the world with his sports performance and sportsmanship, however, so that's good to hear.

I was on my way somewhere, but it was compelling to where I couldn't get out of my car until it had finished and sat in the parking lot listening until it had.

This link, below, will help to give a more objective view of the competition.

Various lip-readers have been asked to analyse what was said to Zidane. If what they say is true, then the Italian player is in real trouble for disgusting racist remarks. However, the game of football has always had the incidents of opposing players, winding-up their opposition.

Zidane reacted. His assault was disgraceful. It does not take away the pure magic of his skills that we have all enjoyed watching over the years.

It is absolutely not true, I did not call him a terrorist. I'm ignorant. I don't even know what the word means," the Italian news agency Ansa quoted Materazzi as saying after the Italian team returned to Rome.